1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print processing apparatus and a control method. Specifically, the invention relates to so-called preview processing, in which output results of print data are previewed prior to printing.
2. Description of the Related Art
When printing data such as documents or images with printing apparatuses such as printers, the use of print preview functions that display to-be-printed images on the screen for users in advance of actual printing on paper is conventionally well known. Using the print preview functions to preview images to be printed, users are able to confirm the suitability of output results, such as whether images are in the desired layouts. The print preview functions can be used not only at the time of actual printing but also at the time of retrieving desired print data from print data recorded on recording media such as HDDs in printers.
Examples of preview processing methods include a method for displaying a thumbnail image that corresponds to the print data and a method for generating a preview image from the print data at the time of specifying printing and displaying the generated image, for example. As a processing method used when a conflict occurs between print processing and preview processing, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-039941 proposes a method for controlling conflicts between print processing and preview processing based on preview settings in a job.
However, the above-described conventional technique does not allow simultaneous execution of both print processing and preview processing when they use the same resources. For example, preview processing cannot be completed during execution of print processing, which leads to a lack of user-friendly immediacy.